A few weeks ago, I tried a great new spot in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood – The Citizen Public House and Oyster Bar.  And then I went back…

It’s a great spot for after work – excellent bartending staff, a great selection of beers, a better selection of whiskeys, and wine on tap.  (Yes I said it, wine on tap).  I haven’t tried the food, but that looks delicious too and I am sure I will be back to give the menu a shot.

I’m pretty loyal to my usual spots, and around Fenway that means the Cask N’ Flagon, The Baseball Tavern, and Remy’s.  But someone was raving about the Citizen Public House, so I gave it a shot.

Business is like that too.  Companies have their ‘usual spots’, but they come in the form of vendors and products.  You don’t just get on that list because you open up shop.  You get on their list by delivering in a way that makes people that your clients already trust rave about your company.

The trust component is critical here.  Ads in the Improper Bostonian do very little to close the trust gap enough to get a client to choose you over an incumbent provider.  Your focus should be on creating relationships, not selling, and anything less than an intense focus on exceeding expectations for clients you are working for (or selling your product to) is a huge mistake, because they are your best brand advocates.

Check out the Citizen Public House on Twitter and Facebook.

(Disclaimer that I shoudn’t even write but feel obligated to: The Citizen Public House did not compensate me for this post.  In fact, they have no idea who I am.  If, by chance, they offer me a free beer though, I will take it, and I will not share it with you)

Word of Mouth Marketing is a post from: HR Think Tank

In August, I was pumped to be starting on a challenging project at a new client.  I had met the team, and was content with the fact that I was faced with a few long days of ramp up.  I had all of the documents laid out on my desk and only one thing was missing – my standard afternoon Diet Coke.  So I strolled into the break room, and BAM.  It hit me.  There it was, like a shining beacon of despair.  The PEPSI machine.

I think Coke takes better, and I’m not alone.  Yet Pepsi and Coke alike have blasted us with their blind taste test campaigns to try to turn their non-believers.  I’m not buying it.  What I am buying, is the notion of Brand Imagery, supported scientifically, that when study participants are aware of the brand before they drink, three quarters of the participants chose Coke over Pepsi.

American Cancer Society VP Andy Goldsmith gives you more detail in his article Coke vs. Pepsi: The Taste Test They Don’t Want You to Know About. Goldmith highlights studies that suggest that there is such a thing as Brand Imagery:

The brain studies suggest that Coke’s iconic brand and arguably stronger cultural connection may in fact make a difference in preference. And that preference is linked not just to taste (hello, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) but also memory-related brain regions that are related to cultural influences.

At the most basic level, this means that your company, and your product, are not evaluated on quality alone.  It means that your sales process has to appeal to both rationally and emotionally to your target customers.   This example focuses on the Coke vs. Pepsi debate, but the phenomenon certainly transcends consumer goods.  Technology vendors and consulting firms need to be aware that there is an emotional response to their brand that affects their ability to penetrate new accounts and grow their business.

You may be a handshake company that doesn’t need marketing or fancy brand strategists.  I won’t disagree… that type of overhead isn’t a fit for all organizations.  But there is no denying that there are no companies that are isolated from science and human psychology.  If your sales are lacking or you are having trouble convincing new clients to invest in your product or services, your lack of focus on brand positioning may pose an improvement opportunity for your company.

Now can someone get me a Coke please?  This Pepsi vending machine has got to go…

Coke vs. Pepsi: Brand Image is a post from: HR Think Tank

I think that communication and relationship management is THE NUMBER 1 driver of project success.  Hands down.  Scan the tags in my blog, and come across posts like Four Types of People: Know Your Audience and Managing Scope: It’s Really About Trust, Communication, and Delivery.  I saw a quote and it reminded me just how important it is not to lose sight of barriers to communication in the workplace.

What you say may not be what the other person hears.  What you hear may not be what the other person means.

Communication.  Trust.  Important concepts in business and project management.  But I can’t emphasize how important it is to consider your audience and to tailor your delivery to prevent communication style bias from harpooning your project’s progress.  This approach, dubbed style flexing, is a common practice with successful sales professionals who are skilled at modifying their approach to communicate on their customer’s communication style level.  Improve in this area, and see instant results.  You can bet on it.

Communication Style Bias is a post from: HR Think Tank

I was in a meeting last week discussing project management and client delivery and an executive made the point that the scope of the project is what the client thinks it is – period – and that as consultants it is our job to effectively manage expectations around scope continuously throughout an engagement.

Nailing down project scope has always been difficult, and it’s no surprise that when managing using a Waterfall/SDLC approach, scope creep and lack of scope definition are often some of the root causes of catastrophic project overruns and busted projects (Hence immense growth of Agile/Iterative… future post).  This is because, as depicted in the Dilbert cartoon, most businesses and hence most projects aren’t particularly good at documenting requirements.  And bad requirements lead to scope assumptions that will later contribute to a business sponsor being significantly underwhelmed by the final product.  However, even without perfectly documented requirements, there are ways to effectively manage project scope without having to rely on (and hide behind) some formal 100 page contract?  The key is to ensure your team is focused on the three things that contribute most to effectively managing expectations on the project: Trust, Communication, and Delivery.

1. Trust – Trust is not a nice to have – in both B2B relationships and B2C relationships – trust is critical in today’s economy where partnering and relationships are king.  Stephen Covey said “Business moves at the speed of trust” and when you are managing scope, it’s important to have that “high-trust dividend” in play.

2. Communication (and other soft-skills critical to relationship management!) – Maybe this one should be first on the list.  Why?  Because effective communication is the key to establishing trust in the first place.  In my Rockstar Project Management series, HR technology veteran Michael Krupa noted that “You can’t teach someone to be a Rockstar Project Manager. Either they “get it” or they don’t.”  We went on to agree that you can teach someone to be a ‘Good PM’, but to really excel, a PM has to have a little something extra that is hard to teach.  Part of that something extra is a great communication style, the ability to quickly build relationships, and a knack for bringing disparate and often dysfunctional teams together and moving in the same direction.  It’s tough (nearly impossible) to screen and hire for, but when you find it hold on tight, because it’s gold!

3. Delivery – Trust and communication are the currency that buy you autonomy and a little runway as a project manager.  At the end of the day, it’s still all about delivery.  Your clients are counting on you to solve problems, communicate progress, and hold up your end of the deal.  The scope may not be bounded by a formal contract, but it’s bounded by something far more important – your reputation.  I don’t advise compromising on communication, and certainly not on trust, but a client buys delivery, not friends.  Deliver.

The other interesting thing is that it really takes ALL THREE of these to sustain business in a healthy, continued vendor-client relationship.  Think about it, if you establish trust and communicate well but don’t deliver it’s a no brainer – you might get the invite to happy hour or to the weekend BBQ, but you won’t be on the project team.  If you communicate and deliver, but don’t establish trust, you may get some niche, difficult roles here and there, but you will never be the go-to resource for the client.  And if you are in a trusting relationship and deliver, but don’t communicate well, you put your business sponsor in that tough position to defend your existence without arming them with the information they need to manage up.

Do you agree?  What else would you add to the list?

Managing Scope: It’s Really About Trust, Communication, and Delivery is a post from: HR Think Tank

Most of you have probably already seen this video (if your browser doesn’t display the video, get it on YouTube here). It’s message is pretty difficult to refute – the Social Media Revolution is upon us.  I mean, the one stat alone that ‘If Facebook (with over 400 million active users) were a country it would be the world’s 4th 3rd largest between above the United States and with only China and India being larger is incredible.  People are getting involved – they’re on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and increasingly, they blog.  According to Universal McCann, 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002 and 77% of internet users are reading blogs.  Are you blogging?  Are you wondering if you should be?

The blog, the future buzz had a great article on the 70 Usable Stats from the 2009 State Of the Blogosphere with some great stats on what motivates bloggers and the impact to their business.  Here are some of my favorites:

71% say they blog at least in order to speak their minds

72% say they blog to share their expertise

53% are looking to attract new clients from blogging

72% of those who are self-employed and blogging are interested in attracting new clients

71% of respondents who maintain blogs for a business report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs

58% say that they are better known in their industry because of their blog

All great numbers, and good reasons to blog.  I’m definitely blogging for some of these reasons – I’m passionate about organizational culture discussion and the talent side of the business.  I like the idea of sharing my experiences, and I have been pitching my company’s leadership to start a business blog specifically because of some of these statistics.

But, when I really sat down and thought about why I am blogging, here is what I drew up:

For me, I’m blogging because, well, because I wasn’t.  And I felt like that was leaving an opportunity on the table, because in the consulting business, and in business in general, being a good connector is a good thing.  And effective connectors are good at building actionable communities.  Apparently, I am not the only one who feels that way.  When I typed in “HR blogging and connectedness” into Google, I recognized the 5′th result that got returned: Ben Eubank’s Upstart HR.  One of Steve Boese’s HR Technology class students, Carolina Correa, just recently guest posted on Ben’s site about a similar topic, writing “To blog or not to blog is a debate that only finds answers when discussed in the context of finding value, this is true not just for the HR community but just about any profession seeking the comforts of connectedness.”

Well said Carolina. Because within that connectedness is opportunity.  Opportunity to learn, contribute, build relationships, and build a community.  And that’s why I blog.

Thoughts?

What motivated you to start blogging?  Is blogging helping you or your business?  What are people doing wrong out there on their personal or business blogs.  Share your thoughts in the comments section!

(6/17/2010 – Updated the post with the latest Social Media Revolution video with updates statistics)

The Answer to the Question: Why Blog? is a post from: HR Think Tank

Back in March, I was asked to write the monthly ‘Living the Value Proposition’ column for my company’s monthly newsletter.  In a very Jerry Macguire-esque effort – I stayed up all night thinking about value propositions – the tough to define, ever-continuous search to define the elusive catch-phrase that pops into peoples minds when they think of our company.  I wasn’t looking to write marketing collateral or website material here – I wanted to dish some old school stream of consciousness thoughts on some basic questions: Why do people work here?  Why do clients hire us?  What enables us to get long term traction?

I decided to talk about the value of people and trust, and what they meant to our company – About how they defined our sales and delivery approach.

I wasn’t on Twitter yet – but I found Amber Naslund (@AmberCadabra) who wrote in her blog back in 2008 that “Delivering something worthwhile is not achieved in a board room with big flip charts or spreadsheets and ideation sessions. It’s not delivered with a slick brochure or well-written copy, or a stack of press hits in the Wall Street Journal.  It’s not delivered in key messages or brand attributes, even.  It’s delivered in the work that you do with and for your customers, each and every day.  The hard stuff, where you roll up your sleeves and show what you’re made of.  Solving real problems for real people.” When I read this – it instantly resonated with me – it sounded like my company.  It was at the heart of why we were experiencing real traction with clients.

I used Amber’s message as a spring board into talking about our hiring model as a key differentiator for the firm.  We don’t hire ‘revenue streams’ for short term opportunities; We don’t bend on out model to snatch up a high performer that isn’t a cultural fit; We don’t have partners and directors and mangers and associates and note takers in an endless ongoing hierarchy of escalating bill rates.  We hire good people that do great work and we give those people the opportunity to be part of a great company, and it works – Good candidates come here – and stay here – and we’re better because of it.

I also ran across Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s blogs and their pre-Trust Agents eBook called Trust Economies.  They spoke about a business universe build from decades of empty promises, overused buzz words, and buyer skepticism.  They were hitting on the key to our value proposition: linking great people with great clients with a relationship grounded in the common currency of trust.

As we know all too well, a typical sales person (and in many cases a typical consultant) has a short-term mindset, focusing on monthly targets, quarterly/yearly quotas, and high-profit engagements.  But in the Trust Economy – it’s the relationship that drives the sale. Some companies will come in with glossy paper and big names and sell on reputation, but their long-term viability and stickiness are hampered by the lack of a sound, trusting relationship with their clients and numerous cases of non-delivery.

Companies and individuals alike can learn some valuable lessons here.  A strong commitment and focus on building sound relationships, and then adding value to those relationships without a greedy, take more than you give approach can lead to long-term benefits.  Focus on selling this way – Deliver.  Do what is right.  Focus on doing what is best for the client, without selfish and misaligned agendas.  Don’t gouge clients on rates because you can, and don’t change order clients to death. Take Amber’s advice and treat them like peers – roll up your sleeves and solve real problems together!

It’s about the Fuzzy Stuff: People and Trust is a post from: HR Think Tank